Date: 03/04
City: Esquel, Argentina
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 40450
Street: –
Weather: sunny/cloudy, warm

Today we thought we have breakfast in the eating area, so Sigrid crawled down the spiral stairs.

We had a nice breakfast and Betina drove us to the hospital where Sigrid got her x-rays done. When Sigrid was limping into the hospital, the staff put her straight into a wheel chair.

It took a while to get the x-rays, but when it was done even we could see it… Sigrid had a cracked bone and it was even a bit apart, so it needs surgery.

This was bad news which could mean the end of our trip. So we talked to the doctor and explained our position and tried to find a way to continue our trip without being in the middle of winter in Ushuaia. One thing was for sure, the leg needed to be stabilized to avoid further damage and that meant to put it into plaster. The doctor explained that he had to put the plaster above the knee.

To get Sigrid going we got some crutches as well and a physio showed Sigrid how to use them.

The most feasible solution for us was to get the operation done in Puerto Montt (the town where we just came from), which would mean a bus journey from at least 15 hours – not something Sigrid did look forward to… When we came back to the hostel, Betina, our host, came up with an alternative. She was suggesting that she could take us to the next larger town in Argentina, just 70 km up the road. In Esquel she had a friend of a friend who is a trauma surgeon. She actually called him and he agreed to have a look at Sigrid foot. To make it even better Betina was driving to Esquel today. From there she wanted to catch a bus to Buenos Aires, where she would visit her family for two weeks. So we took her up on her offer, packed everything that we needed for a couple of days and left for Argentina. We passed the border without any problems; I would have expected some questions on the Chilean border, since we left the Country without our motos. Anyway, all went well and passed in no time the Argentina migration and were on our way to Esquel.

When we arrived in Esquel, we meet Negro, a friend of Betina who lives here and knows the trauma surgeon well. Both were incredible nice. We have experienced it when I had my accident back in the US, when you need people they will go out of their way to help. So Betina and Negro helped us to find accommodation, get Argentinean money so I could buy some food and pay for the accommodation and Negro went even off and organize beacon and eggs for us since they were sold out in the super marcado. After all that, we had dinner together, Pizza and some well-deserved beer.

When we were sitting in the restaurant a guy approached us and said: ” Haven’t you recently been in Chaiten?” It was Diego who we meet in our accommodation in Chaiten after riding in the rain for two hours. He mentioned that he was from Argentina and on his way back, but we didn’t know that he was living in Esquel -small world. Anyway we had a great evening. Tomorrow Betina and Negro will pick us up from our accommodation and bring us to the surgeon where Betina will translate for us before she hops on the bus to Buenos Aires, how nice is that? What a crazy day.